By Brittney Garza
Malcom, Lee creates an entertaining and creative sequel to 1999s “The Best Man,” with “The Best Man Holiday,” pulling various emotions throughout the film.
Even though many would classify this as a “chick flick,” this film fits guys and girls alike. There’s romance and relationship struggles for the romantics and sports for the guys.
Even though this movie is a sequel, watching the original movie is not necessary as viewers are provided a history of the characters through a montage at the beginning of the movie.
“Best Man Holiday” brought back the original cast of Taye Diggs, Sannaa Lathan, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall, Terrence Howard and Harold Perrineau.
Although, a lot of the rolls were typical type cast and lacked depth, such as the athlete, the nice guy, the drug user, the mix of different stories and backgrounds coming together, the characters came together as well.
During the movie, Harper, played by Diggs, is being encouraged to write another book by his agent (Michael Higgins). His agent says that the book was “funny, sexy and smart,” and follows this with “and not just black people smart.”
Although this comment was in regards to a characters book in the movie it can be applied to the movie itself. The movie is smart, sexy and funny and not just in a way that would appeal to a certain type of audiences. The characters are type cast in certain roles but not according to their race
It was refreshing to see and hear African Americans not forced into such an overuse of colloquial terminology. The audience didn’t necessarily need to know street lingo.
The movie uses various important life events, but sometimes overuses them. The inclusion of love, sex, childbirth, sports and an assortment of comedy messed up the flow of the movie, ultimately dropping the level of entertainment.
Throughout the 122-minute movie, there are a few short periods when the movie lags in the storyline, but it does pick back up.
The only part of the movie that seemed too cliché to fit is the choreographed dance number. With a film dealing with reuniting friends, and Christmas, you are bound to get cliché moments, such as a Santa Claus, a mistletoe kiss, but a dance number? That was a bit extreme and the fact that no one in the movie reacted to it with surprise or disbelief, through some audience member for a loop.
Musical number aside, the movie was entertaining and kept audience member interested. The comedy aspect of the film was not lacking while still providing a story line that was not pulled too far from plausible.
